PM helps secure Derry call centre jobs

Convergys Corporation is to set up a customer service centre in the city with its client, the digital communications company EE, creating 333 new positions.It has been revealed that the Prime Minister met with the management of the American firm at last year's Northern Ireland Investment Conference, asking them to consider Derry as a possible location for the new business.Invest Northern Ireland is also supporting the investment by offering £1.5m.The salary of the jobs on offer will be between £15,000 and £30,000 and are expected to contribute around £5m a year to the local economy.Convergys Corporation is a US-based company which operates 150 customer service centres across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia and in a work-at-home environment.The company also operates two service centres in Belfast through its recent acquisition of US-based Stream Global Services.EE was the first company to bring 4G to the UK in 2012, when it launched 4G services, and is the only 4G provider across Northern Ireland.The centre will open later this spring.Rule of thumb: if it's a high number of jobs, it's a call centre. Better paying posts come in much smaller lots— Jamie Delargy (@Jamie_utv) April 17, 2014Convergys chief commercial officer Mike Wooden said: "By combining our extensive experience supporting many of the world's top telecommunications companies with the highly skilled and talented workforce in this region we can create a delivery centre that will generate meaningful benefits for Convergys clients, and more importantly, extensive career opportunities for the local workforce.""Invest NI's support throughout this process was an important part of our decision to locate here. We look forward working with them again in the future."Olaf Swantee, chief executive of EE, said: "I'm very proud that EE is leading the UK telecoms industry, delivering not only the first but the biggest and fastest 4G network for the country, and within 18 months, I want to be able to say that EE has done for customer service in the UK what it has done for networks."A major step towards this is returning customer service jobs to the UK, where performance has been shown to exceed that of overseas contact centres. The first stage of this is to bring over 300 jobs to Northern Ireland in partnership with Convergys."Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster said: "This investment, which will generate over £5m to the local economy annually, is good news for the north west and for the Northern Ireland economy as a whole."As well as attending the Northern Ireland Investment Conference last October, representatives from Convergys and EE also participated in a roundtable discussion at the event with Prime Minister David Cameron to specifically discuss the benefits of Northern Ireland as a cost-effective investment location."It is welcome news today that we have been able to turn those discussions into tangible results. Invest NI's offer of support was also crucial to convincing Convergys and its client to choose Northern Ireland as the base for its new customer service centre."